Duterte arrest, stock selloff, farmers and Maradona
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Today, fears of an economic downturn see the U.S. stock market lose $4 trillion in value. Why farmers are struggling under Trump's tariffs and spending cuts. And a hearing into the death of soccer superstar Maradona. ♪

It's Tuesday, March 11th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Jonah Green in New York. And I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool. Save on Cox Internet when you add Cox Mobile and get fiber-powered internet at home and unbeatable 5G reliability on the go. So whether you're playing a game at home or attending one live,

You can do more without spending more. Learn how to save at Cox.com slash internet. Cox internet is connected to the premises via coaxial cable. Cox mobile runs on the network with unbeatable 5G reliability as measured by UCLA LLC in the US to age 2023. Results may vary, not an endorsement of the restrictions apply. We start in the Philippines. The supporters of Rodrigo Duterte are rallying outside the airbase where he's being held.

The ex-president was arrested in Manila's airport at the request of the International Criminal Court. It's a major step in the ICC's investigation into the thousands of alleged extrajudicial killings in Duterte's signature war on drugs. The 79-year-old has repeatedly defended the drug crackdown. He denies ordering the murders of drug suspects and says he instructed the police to kill in self-defense only.

On Monday, US stock markets suffered their largest drop since President Donald Trump took office, with tech shares falling at their fastest pace since 2022 and trillions of dollars wiped off the S&P 500. And the mood in financial markets is still skittish. Carmel Crimmins is here to tell us what's going on.

So what started as a stock market sell-off accelerated to a full retreat. We saw corporate bond sales scrapped, Delta Airlines cutting its profit expectations due to economic uncertainty and Treasuries rallying as they took on that safe haven role. So what's triggered it?

Well, Trump's trade war and the cuts to federal spending are darkening the economic outlook. But I think crucially, signals from Trump and his advisers that there needs to be some near-term pain while his policies take effect has really spooked people. It has markets preparing for the possibility of a recession, and they're now pricing in a 50-50 chance of a Fed rate cut in May. I thought the markets were very bullish on Trump.

Well, they were. The period between his election and his inauguration were a boom time for stocks. Investors were betting on tax cuts and deregulation to power returns. But the mood has soured over what tariffs and spending cuts could mean for growth. So where do we go from here?

So the global sell-off eased a bit and U.S. stock futures have recovered somewhat, but the mood is still very fragile. Trump is meeting with U.S. business leaders later today, so it's going to be interesting to hear what he has to say to them. You know, will it be words of reassurance or more like a fasten your seatbelt kind of chat? We'll have to just wait and see. Trump's tariffs have not just provoked chaos in the markets, it's causing stress and confusion in the farm belt, an area where Trump has historically enjoyed widespread support.

U.S. farmers are also grappling with a pause in federal spending and a freeze on most humanitarian aid as well. Leah Douglas has been covering the story.

Well, we spoke to more than two dozen farmers and food or farm organizations in seven states, and they all were reporting some amount of grant funding that was frozen from the U.S. government and from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The impacts are really broad. We spoke to one farmer in Montana who has been waiting on a $648,000 grant from USDA to build a feed mill that would serve area farmers.

And with that money frozen, now that project has been delayed. We've talked to some organizations that have laid off staff and farmers that are making different planting decisions or potentially losing customers who themselves are waiting on grants from the USDA. And I was surprised to read in your piece that they are also affected by foreign aid cuts as well.

That's right. So U.S. farmers sell a significant amount of U.S. commodities into the foreign aid infrastructure. So those are commodities that the U.S. government is donating, sending abroad into different development programs. And with a lot of disruption to USAID, the dismantling of that organization and disruption to foreign aid in general, that's meant a lot of confusion in farm countries.

And we first started off in the goat business. So another set of farmers that we spoke to, Ed and Becky Morgan, who have a livestock farm in Shanks, West Virginia. And they liked our sausage. Cool.

This is viable. They have been growing their business selling flavored sausages and breakfast sausage links to public schools in their area. That's been a great booming area of business for them. But now those schools, which were waiting on grants from the USDA for food programs, are themselves wondering whether they'll be able to continue with those purchases, which is putting Ed and Becky in a tough situation. And on the tariffs, Trump says farmers should

just produce goods to sell domestically instead of exporting. How do they feel about that idea? Farm groups and farmers have been pretty critical of President Trump's proposals of tariffs that will affect U.S. farm goods. The domestic farm economy is really reliant on export markets. We grow huge amounts of corn and soy and other grains for export, and those products can't be easily redirected to be sold inside the United States. So it's caused a lot of concern.

The Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, has said that the agency is starting to release some of this frozen money, but did not answer questions about how much has been released or what the timetable is for that. Ukraine has launched its biggest drone attack yet on the Russian capital. At least 91 drones have been downed over Moscow. The drones have sparked fires and forced airports to shut and flights to divert.

A tanker carrying jet fuel for the US military was hit by a Portuguese-flagged container ship off northeast England on Monday. The collision set both vessels ablaze and forced both crews to abandon ship. A judge has temporarily blocked the deportation of the Palestinian student arrested at Columbia University. And a hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday. Mahmoud Khalil is currently in a federal jail for migrants in Louisiana.

Today kicks off the trial of several medical professionals in Argentina charged with the death of football superstar Diego Maradona in November of 2020. Maradona's heart failure just days after a brain surgery was reviewed by a medical board, which said his health care team acted in an, quote, "inappropriate, deficient and reckless manner." The medical team generally rejects the charges.

Here to explain is our bureau chief for Southern Latin America, Adam Jordan. The focus of the case is whether the defendants, all part of Maradona's medical team, we're talking nurses, we're talking psychiatrists and a brain surgeon, whether they were culpable in his death.

What the doctors and his medical team say was that he was a difficult patient. It was hard to treat him. He didn't want to be treated in a hospital. He wanted to be at home. Now, Maradona had...

been unwell in various forms for years. He suffered with addictions of alcohol and cocaine. What his family and prosecutors say is that the doctors did not do enough knowing that he was unwell, knowing that he had various complications. So on that is basically what this whole case rests. Was it their fault? Was Maradona just too difficult to look after and too sick and they couldn't have done anything about it?

Maradona is one of the most beloved players of the game of all time, arguably. So how are fans reacting?

The thing in Argentina is that Maradona is just a figure that is bigger than life. He is everywhere. You see him on murals on the side of buildings. You see him on tattoos of football fans. And he's revered to such an extent that when he did die, he lay in state here in Buenos Aires. There were tens of thousands of people that thronged into the streets to go and see him, an outpouring of grief. And

That has led to a situation where people feel very invested in his death. There's an emotional element to it beyond the deaths of most celebrities or icons. Pope Francis is no longer in immediate danger of death and is responding well to treatment in the hospital, the Vatican says. The 88-year-old pontiff has battled double pneumonia for three weeks.

Truckloads of green coffee beans are being reported stolen across the United States as prices for the beans increase to all-time highs. And if you want to learn more about coffee's rising prices, check out our Econ World podcast all about coffee. We'll put a link in the description.

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And for today's recommended read, the scientists who are trying to save the endangered ocelot. There are fewer than 100 left in the US and scientists are trekking across the country, trying fertility treatments and working to kickstart a new generation of the wildcat. There's a link to a story in the pod description. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player.

We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.